Marshall Sutherland

Sat, 12 Jun 2021 11:23:52 -0400 last edited: Sat, 12 Jun 2021 11:26:46 -0400

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Tiago Peixoto wrote the following post Sat, 12 Jun 2021 03:11:05 -0400

An excellent text about a crucial point that should be more widely understood: censorship has *always* been justified by the greater good, but it *never* was.

The Peril of Politicizing Science, by Anna I. Krylov

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01475

free speech cancel culture

Sat, 12 Jun 2021 11:25:42 -0400

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

credit to @Alexandre Hannud Abdo for sharing this

Mon, 14 Jun 2021 22:50:01 -0400

Chloe

starrychloe@fsphub.org

Similar theme #^The Forbidden History of Unpopular People

Topher takes an irreverent look back at the unpopular people of history and finds that sometimes it's the 'crackpots' who are right... meaning that there's a...

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 18:14:07 -0400

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Why Millennials Hate Free Speech and What to Do About It
by ReasonTV on YouTube

Andrew Doyle is an Irish journalist and writer best known as the creator of the Twitter personality Titania McGrath, a parody of an ultra-woke, 24-year-old, militant vegan who thinks she is a better poet than William Shakespeare. Though the 43-year-old Doyle describes himself as a left-winger, he is a fierce critic of cancel culture and a proponent of Brexit. He holds a doctorate from Oxford in early Renaissance poetry, is the host of the new nightly show GB News, and is a columnist for Spiked Online. (He's a previous guest on The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie.)

Doyle is also the author of the new book Free Speech and Why It Matters, a comprehensive, learned, and compelling argument in favor of unfettered debate and open expression. Nick Gillespie talks with him about why cancel culture is on the rise, how to combat it, and what Titania McGrath is up to as she approaches her quarter-life crisis.

free speech cancel culture

Sat, 13 Mar 2021 10:10:05 -0500 last edited: Sat, 13 Mar 2021 10:11:50 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

What is an Anti-Vaxxer?

Anyway, because of my personal history I have taken a particular interest in the matter of personal insults used as a debating technique. Rather than relying on the use of terribly boring tactics like facts, and data. Why debate when you can achieve the same result with a pinpoint laser guided insult?

Now we have the deadliest insult of all. â€˜Anti-vaxxer.â€™ Two relatively short words, but if you dare to touch them, they explode into maelstrom of poison that spreads far and wide, destroying anyone and everyone in range. Today, to mix my metaphors, there is probably no deeper abyss to be dropped into, than the abyss of being labelled an â€˜anti-vaxxer.â€™

Of course, the term has no definition. It doesnâ€™t even have any discernible boundaries. You can be wandering about quite innocently and suddenly find you have become an â€˜anti-vaxxer.â€™ I mentioned that the phase III clinical trials on AstraZenecaâ€™s COVID19 vaccine will not be completed until 2023.

This, it seems, to some people on a medical website called doctors.net makes me an anti-vaxxer. Highly suspicious at the very least â€˜And vhy, Dr Kendrick do you find it necessary to point out such matters. Have no doubt my friend that ve shall be vatching you very closely in future.â€™ I think I am channelling Raiders of the Lost Ark here.

We have now reached the position where, to state an incontrovertible fact about a clinical trial, makes you an anti-vaxxer. Which means that there truly are no longer any places to go. If, that is, you want to discuss vaccines in any way.

outrage science covid-19 cancel culture free speech

Sun, 07 Mar 2021 10:14:59 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

#^Fired For Social Media

cancel culture unintended consequences

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 20:12:51 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

#^Social Media is Censoring You. We Have the Receipts.

We, like you, have been hopeful for a strong, pleasant 2021 to recovery from a tumultuous year.
For those hoping 2021 would provide a calmer political environmentâ€¦ Sorry.

In just over a month, we've dealt with confusion over election results, a crisis in DC, another impeachment, and a host of issues on social media. That's raised questions about how those platforms make and enforce their terms of service and what consequences come from those decisions.

But history has shown that exerting more control over speech tends not to yield the intended result.

In this episode of Out of Frame, we'll take a look at how the corporate and cultural response to increasing tides of restrictions on the free exchange of information is not only misguided, but will also foster a world with even more problems.

About 27 minutes long

free speech cancel culture regulation Internet politics

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 11:02:59 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Now that you mention it, there was something about age restriction, but I'm not sure why.

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 11:31:16 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

#^The Philadelphia Statement

Our public discourse is being undermined by cancel culture and ideological blacklisting. Your voice can change that.

The statement:

Social Media mobs. Cancel culture. Campus speech policing. These are all part of life in todayâ€™s America. Freedom of expression is in crisis. Truly open discourseâ€”the debates, exchange of ideas, and arguments on which the health and flourishing of a democratic republic crucially dependâ€”is increasingly rare. Ideologues demonize opponents to block debates on important issues and to silence people with whom they disagree.

We must ask ourselves: Is this the country we want? Surely not. We wantâ€”and to be true to ourselves we needâ€”to be a nation in which we and our fellow citizens of many different faiths, philosophies, and persuasions can speak their minds and honor their deepest convictions without fear of punishment and retaliation.

If we seek a brighter future, we must relearn a fundamental truth: Our liberty and our happiness depend upon the maintenance of a public culture in which freedom and civility coexistâ€”where people can disagree robustly, even fiercely, yet treat each other as human beingsâ€”and, indeed, as fellow citizensâ€”not mortal enemies. â€œLiberty is meaningless where the right to utter oneâ€™s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist,â€ Frederick Douglass declared in 1860. Indeed, our liberal democracy is rooted in and dependent upon the shared understanding that all people have inherent dignity and worth, and that they must be treated accordingly.

A society that lacks comity and allows people to be shamed or intimidated into self-censorship of their ideas and considered judgments will not survive for long. As Americans, we desire a flourishing, open marketplace of ideas, knowing that it is the fairest and most effective way to separate falsehood from truth. Accordingly, dissenting and unpopular voicesâ€”be they of the left or the rightâ€”must be afforded the opportunity to be heard. They have often guided our society toward more just positions, which is why Frederick Douglass said freedom of speech is the â€œgreat moral renovator of society and government.â€

The American tradition of freedom of expression, complete with its attendant responsibilities, is our school for democratic citizenship. It trains us to think critically, to defend our ideas, and, at the same time, to be considerate of others whose creeds and convictions differ from our own. It enables us to learn from, and peacefully live with, one another despite differences. It further instills in us an understanding that the mere exposure to ideas we find offensive is not an act of â€œviolence.â€ And it admonishes us that if we value the freedom of expression, we must extend the same measure of freedom to others, even to those whom we believe have gone very wrong in their thinking.

Tragically, we are losing these defining features of our democracy. Common decency and free speech are being dismantled through the stigmatizing practice of blacklisting ideological opponents, which has taken on the conspicuous form of â€œhateâ€ labeling. Responsible organizations are castigated as â€œhate groups.â€ Honest people of good faith are branded â€œhate agents.â€ Even mainstream ideas are marginalized as â€œhate speech.â€ This threatens our ability to listen, discuss, debate, and grow.

Blacklisting is spreading. Corporations are enacting â€œhate-speechâ€ policies to protect people from â€œwrongâ€ and â€œharmfulâ€ content. Similarly, colleges and universities are imposing speech regulations to make students â€œsafe,â€ not from physical harm, but from challenges to campus orthodoxy. These policies and regulations assume that we as citizens are unable to think for ourselves and to make independent judgments. Instead of teaching us to engage, they foster conformism (â€œgroupthinkâ€) and train us to respond to intellectual challenges with one or another form of censorship.

Humanity has repeatedly tried expunging undesirable beliefs and ideas. What self-appointed speech arbiters, whether in the majority or in the minority, fail to grasp is that they will likely eventually become the targets. The winds inevitably shift, sometimes rapidly. The question is whether civility norms and free-speech safeguards will remain in place to protect them, or whether they will become victims of the dangerous precedents they themselves have established and advanced.

To be sure, our free speech tradition is not absolutist. It does not embrace certain, limited categories of speech, such as defamation, obscenity, intimidation and threats, and incitement to violence. Yet the idea of â€œhate speechâ€ exceptions to free speech principles is foreign to our free speech ideals, impossible to define, and often used by those wielding political, economic, or cultural power to silence dissenting voices. That is why we must favor openness, to allow ideas and beliefs the chance to be assessed on their own merits; and we must be willing to trust that bad ideas will be corrected not through censorship but through better arguments.

If we seek to change our countryâ€™s trajectory; if we desire unity rather than division; if we want a political life that is productive and inspiring; if we aspire to be a society that is pluralistic and free, one in which we can forge our own paths and live according to our own consciences, then we must renounce ideological blacklisting and recommit ourselves to steadfastly defending freedom of speech and passionately promoting robust civil discourse.

free speech cancel culture

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 12:18:52 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

#^Build Back Bitter | Sovereign Man

Itâ€™s over everyone, you can sleep easy againâ€” the party of peace, tolerance, and reconciliation is back in power. Amen. And Awomen.

They claim they want to heal and unify the nation. But clearly the only way to do so is to create enemies lists and silence anyone with dissenting opinions.

cancel culture free speech